Posts Tagged ‘Children and Teens’

As noted on the library’s homepage and calendar: services, programs, and collections for children and teens will be temporarily unavailable at the Central Library in Copley Square from Monday, February 9, through Saturday, February 14, while the teams staffing the Children’s Library and Teen Central move to their new locations on the second floor of the Johnson building. Additionally, the Central Library in Copley Square will be closed on Sunday, February 15, and Monday, February 16, in observance of Presidents Day.

One of the ways the Children and Teens principle of the strategic plan and the outcome Collaborate with area organizations on early learning experiences is fulfilled involves expanded outreach to special institutions that serve children. The BPL collaborates with many organizations on a systemwide and local neighborhood level to offer early learning experiences in all locations. In addition to the well established “Reading Readiness” program that takes place at all BPL locations, several youth librarians have expanded their reach into early learning programs with these organizations:

Family Nurturing Center: The center offers play groups for infants and toddlers aged 0-3 at the Grove Hall, Honan-Allston, Faneuil, and Brighton branches.

Dudley Thrive in Five: Children’s librarians at Dudley, Grove Hall, Mattapan, and Uphams Corner work with Thrive in Five staff to provide programming to parents that is directed at helping them as they learn to be their child’s first teacher. This nationally-recognized program helps provide opportunities for parents to support young children’s healthy growth, development, and school readiness.

Boston Medical Center bWell Center: The library continues its partnership with the bWell Center by providing a rotating book collection focusing on health and wellness. Children’s librarians also read to kids in the waiting room of the Pediatrics Department and sign up kids and families for library cards.

Boston Children’s Hospital: Launched in 2014 by Youth Outreach Librarian Amanda Bressler, the library began offering early literacy programming to staff and patients based on national early learning initiatives “Every Child Ready to Read” and “Mother Goose on the Loose.”

Children’s services and teen services have temporarily relocated to the McKim Exhibition Hall on the first floor of the Central Library in Copley Square. These services will remain in the McKim Exhibition Hall until the renovated second floor of the Johnson building opens in March 2015. Download the Central Library renovation fact sheet for additional project details.

To find the McKim Exhibition Hall (pictured above): enter on Dartmouth Street and turn left before you reach the main staircase. The McKim Exhibition Hall is ahead on the left. The first entryway on the left is for children’s services and the second entryway on the left is for teen services. Refer to the library’s map or speak to a staff member if you have any difficulty finding the McKim Exhibition Hall.

As part of the Children and Teens principle, one of the library’s outcomes is to focus on providing early learning experiences. The first strategy under that principle is to “enhance early literacy programs, such as reading readiness, including age-appropriate, multilingual collections.” Reading Readiness is an early literacy initiative started at the BPL in 1996. It teaches our youngest users important early learning concepts like colors, numbers, shapes, and textures within a fun and interactive environment. After many years, the program had lost its focus as each location offered a different type of early learning program.

Armed with a burst of research on infant brain development, best practices from other library systems, and additional resources from the American Library Association, a group five children’s librarians worked with the youth services coordinator to reimagine and refocus the Reading Readiness program. The enhanced Reading Readiness program at the BPL now incorporates the American Library Association and Public Library Association’s “Every Child Ready to Read” (ECRR) program – a nationally recognized framework for teaching early learning concepts – along with the “Mother Goose on the Loose” program – a thirty-minute interactive story session for babies and toddlers. All children’s librarians were trained on these new initiatives in 2014 and all locations offer a 6-8 week Reading Readiness program twice throughout the year.

Here is a view of the second floor of the Johnson building where nonfiction collections, reference services, and a community reading area will be located as well as a new children’s library and teen space. What’s shown is stacks and stacks of stacks that are in the process of being assembled and installed around the second floor to hold the nonfiction collection. Newly-constructed restrooms are in the background and the entrance to Teen Central is off to the right. Teen Central will house its own collections as well as a digital lab, lounge for gaming and films, and a quiet study area.